Sometimes
the most brilliant, transformative ideas are the simplest. Take, for example,
the ‘Three-Minute Rule’ that Anthony Tjan at the Harvard
Business Review talks about: engage
customers to find out their actions 3 minutes before and 3 minutes after they use your product or service. The
three-minute rule is a great way to find out what you can do to improve your customer
service, and in the contact center world, this is crucial for growth and
sustainability.
The three-minute
rule reminds us that rearranging the context of a shopping experience to better
meet customer patterns can be extremely effective. Customers seek solutions,
but it is likely that your offering is only part of one. The three-minute rule
is a forcing mechanism to see the bigger picture and adjacent opportunities.
There
are opportunities on both sides here - For the customer, a better experience
and for your business, a better chance at a sale. For example, if your customer
is having trouble finding something on your website and a contact center agent
manages to engage them in a live chat, they should ask the customer what made
it so hard for them to find that product in those minutes before help arrived.
Then, the agent should find out what their next step will be with the desired
response being that they will finalize the sale and checkout online. It is the
hope that this attention to detail and level of customer care will make the
customer realize just how worth it the business is to invest in.
So, taking
a moment to chat with customers and finding out how to make their experience a
more satisfactory one all-around will benefit everyone in the long run and make
for a much more satisfactory experience.
